Thanks!

My blog is filled with so much anger and frustration.  If I died tomorrow and someone found this thing, they wouldn't know that I've lived a pretty charmed life.  I wanted to use this space to acknowledge that I'm not bitter all the time.  In most cases, I'm smiling, even when I'm hurting.

Even though I've been more than successful at creating debt, while failing to create babies, I've been gainfully employed.  I am BEYOND GRATEFUL for my job.  It's not my dream job, but I'd rather have it than nothing at all.

Finding out about the ectopic thing and losing my tube sucked, but it happened in the best possible way for me.  I am thankful for my mental health, and I can't tell you how blessed I feel to have recovered from the surgery the way I did.

I have amazing parents and a fantastic husband who dropped everything to get me through that moment.  I didn't even realize how much I needed that support, until it was all over.  I don't know how to properly thank them or repay them.

I have the strangest dogs on Earth.  My sweet little Roxie only likes to sleep in the bed all day.  My Wally is energetic, but hates strangers.  Lord, is he a work in progress, but both of them keep me smiling on my saddest days.  After my surgery, I knew I had to get moving.  Not for myself, but because I had to get Wally back into his dog park and walk routine.  It seems dumb, but I didn't sit around saying, "woe is me."  I got my sore ass out the bed and moved.

I'm thankful to just be alive and I'm thankful for my strange sense of humor.  If my rants help one person who feels as alone as I've felt on this journey, I am thankful for that too.

Now that I've gotten that out, I'll go back to my bitter infertile tone.  I've got to go now.  A disgusting spoon of Royal Bee Jelly awaits me.

Left Tube? Gone!

Sooooo I planned to have a fibroid removal surgery this week.  I felt physically awful after my October retrieval, which netted absolutely no usable embryos.  A lump in my abdomen was growing.  I was sure my fibroids were doing a dirty dance and needed to be removed pronto.  I even moved the surgery up by two weeks.  Well, during the pre-op appointment I tested positive for pregnancy.  Say what?

Here's how the conversation went.

Doctor:  When was your last period?
Me:  I don't know.  It was for my last retrieval. (I looked at my phone and learned my last period was September 25th. It was November 3rd. )
Doctor:  Well, you tested positive for pregnancy.  We tested it twice. I don't think this could be a trigger shot.
Me:  That doesn't make any sense.  I'll call my RE.  Don't worry about it.  This is stupid.  Continue on because I'm having surgery next week.

Well, the RE wanted me to come to her office on that day, which I thought was odd.  I couldn't go because the surgeon's office is more than an hour away from her office and I had to go to work.  I went in the next day.  Of course, there was nothing in my uterus because we all know I can't get pregnant. The RE thought she saw something on the far left.  When she checked my beta it was at 4,000+.  That thing on the far left was my fallopian tube being stretched by a damn embryo.  I had surgery the next day.  They couldn't save my tube.  They also couldn't tackle the fibroids because they said the pregnancy hormone causes too much blood flow in the uterus.  Great!  Now I have to go back to get knifed up again in 3 to 4 months.

Guys, my left tube was allegedly my good one.  The doctor had concerns about the right one that were never confirmed.  Now we know something in the left wasn't letting that embryo pass, but that's okay.  I'm pretty sure the pregnancy would have ended badly because that batch of eggs was terrible.

I'm hurt.  The RE says an egg obviously slipped out before the retrieval and the Hubs left some sperm that were ready to go.  I didn't get to feel any joy of a pregnancy, yet I'd achieved something I couldn't do in 8 years.  That's fine.  I didn't experience heartbreak because there was no attachment.  For me, that embryo was never a baby, but a problem that needed to be removed because everyone feared it would rupture my tube and kill me.  Whatever.

It feels like the universe is playing a cruel joke on me.  I have used up my insurance.  I am in deep debt.  I no longer have confidence in any of this.  I don't think I can continue with Assisted Reproductive Technology any more.  I can't afford it, and I'm no longer willing to gamble on it.  However, I'll take supplements and go to the acupuncture dude in case there's a miracle out there for me.

I will get the fibroid surgery in four months because this surgeon was top notch.  My incisions look fantastic and I didn't wake up in pain.  As I mentioned before, once I'm done with that, it's just me and acupuncture dude.  I'm 34.  This set back would mean I couldn't do anything for nearly a year anyway.
I told the Hubs it's time to look at adoption.

I go back to work today, after two weeks of recovery.  I've got to say, I'm happy to go.  It sucks being off because someone popped open your belly button.  Ugh!  It also sucks having to file for temporary disability for two freaking weeks.  ugh!  It's going to be really annoying when I have to file for a month with the fibroid surgery.